This article was originally published on stmarysschool.org
St. Mary’s instills light and life into every girl who passes through the halls, and for Meg Kinnard Hardee, the school literally saved her life.
She cultivated the necessary skills to advocate for herself within the walls of St. Mary’s for her journalism career and, more importantly, for her cancer diagnosis.
“I’m a breast cancer survivor, and I had to advocate fiercely for my own health when I disagreed with my doctors and needed to pursue a second opinion and different treatment. I know for sure that there is a throughline from the way that I grew up at St. Mary’s and the way that I was encouraged to have my own voice,” she said. “It’s certainly part of what has saved my life.”
After she was diagnosed with Stage 3 inflammatory breast cancer in 2021, Hardee has used her platform to support other women in similar situations, giving them the courage to advocate for themselves. It is this value of courage that allows Hardee to excel in every aspect of her life.
After St. Mary’s, Hardee received a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and later earned her master’s from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Now in her 20th year as a national political reporter at the Associated Press (AP) living in South Carolina, Hardee’s job is to ask questions, be skeptical, and advocate for the public to receive answers.
“I get to witness history as it’s happening,” she said. “I’m entrusted to relate what I’m seeing and put it in context for the rest of the world.”
By covering the last three presidential cycles, the COVID-19 pandemic, and countless elections for a national audience, her resume is evidence of her proximity to recent history. Her dedication to her craft earned her the Oliver S. Gramling Award, AP’s highest internal honor, and her success reflects her determination and tenacity.
“I’ve had the opportunity to interview pretty much anybody who was running for president in the last three presidential cycles,” she said. “If you had asked me 20 years ago when I started with the AP if that was something that I felt would be part of my resume as a reporter, I would have looked at you and said, ‘That’s hilarious.’”
While Hardee has had some high-profile interviews, she recognizes that above all, she has a public responsibility to provide information, fostering a healthy democracy.
“Journalism is really crucial to ensure not only our democracy but also how people see what’s happening in the US,” she said. “I’ve built up to the place where I feel confident in sitting down with those individuals, asking them tough questions, and building rapport, so then we can work on future stories together, but still holding them accountable.”
Hardee’s network has expanded to include political leaders, changemakers, and journalists, but her original community is at St. Mary’s. As a St. Mary’s lifer spending 14 of her first years at the school, she connected to a sisterhood of girls who remain important to her.
“It’s a special club, and it was really neat just going through 14 years with many of the same people and even the ones who joined us later, feeling like they had been there the whole time because of how close we were,” she said. “Memphis and St. Mary’s are always going to be special to me because of the people there.”
While at St. Mary’s, Hardee was nothing short of involved in everything. As a member of the volleyball team, basketball team, track team, Pep club, French club, Belles Lettres, Carillon, and, of course, Tatler, she harnessed her inquisitive nature.
“I think those were really neat places for me to learn how to express myself, and they’re all very different. For example, the yearbook is a chronicle of what we’re doing as students and our whole St. Mary’s experience. The Tatler is a way to journalistically display that side of covering what’s happening at the school,” she said. “Having a creative outlet taps into a completely different part of your brain.”
Also while at St. Mary’s, Hardee remembers each year the Outstanding Alumna came back to share her personal story rooted in a St. Mary’s education.
“I remember being in St. Mary’s chapel when the Alum of the Year came back. I would be in awe, thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, what an amazingly accomplished person.’ I’m so proud to be in the same community,” she said. “Those women were larger than life.”
Now that Hardee is that woman returning to St. Mary’s with the title of 2025 Outstanding Alumna, she couldn’t be more appreciative.
“It’s an amazing honor because St. Mary’s was and is so important to me and so formative in making me who I am,” she said. “To be considered a representative of the alumnae community is the biggest honor I could ever imagine.”
